GFDL - Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

Thomas R. Knutson

Research Meteorologist, NOAA/GFDL

   – Detection and Attribution of Climate Change

   – Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change

   – Climate Change Assessments

Contact:  Tom.Knutson@noaa.gov

Research Interests

• Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change:
  • Global warming and hurricanes (Overview web page, Updated Jan. 24. 2018)
  • Atlantic major hurricane frequency:  Its recent decline and the role of the Atlantic overturning circulation.  (Nature Communications, 2017) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson
  • Intense tropical cyclone activity:  Global projections for the late 21st century from dynamical downscaling of CMIP5/RCP4.5 scenarios (J. Climate, 2015).
  • Atlantic hurricane activity: 21st century dynamical downscaling projections using CMIP3 and CMIP5 models (J. Climate, 2013).  See Research Highlight page (summary of article).
  • Intense Atlantic hurricanes:  modeled impact of anthropogenic warming on their frequency. Science, 2010, by Bender et al.)
  • Past Atlantic hurricane activity:  How well do we know it?   A web site on adjusting for “missing storms” in the past Atlantic hurricane data.  Adjusted datasets are available here.
  • Simulated hurricane animations web page

• Impacts of Greenhouse Gas-Induced Warming On:
  • Atlantic hurricane activity
    • Global Warming and Hurricanes Web Page
  • Global tropical cyclone activity  (J. Climate, 2015)
  • Sahel drought (Held et al. PNAS paper)
  • Summertime heat index:   projections   or detection and attribution of changes
  • Coral bleaching (Donner et al. PNAS paper)
  • Arctic sea ice extent  (Zhang and Knutson, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 2013)
  • Rainfall trends — detection and attribution of regional trends over land   (Knutson and Zeng, J. Climate, in press) Supplemental Material

• Climate Change Detection and Attribution:
  • Precipitation trends over land regions: model assessment of detectable human influences and possible low bias in model trends  Journal of Climate (early online release) Supplemental Material
  • Streamflow timing over North America: Climate model assessment of changes in winter-spring timing.  Journal of Climate (early online release) by Jonghun Kam, T. R. Knutson, and P. C. D. Milly
  • Record global warmth in 2016:  CMIP5 model-based assessment of anthropogenic influence.  Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2017)
  • Multidecadal climate variability:  Observed and simulated fingerprints, and their contributions to periods of global SST stagnation. Journal of Climate (2017) by M. Barcikowska, T. Knutson, and R. Zhang.
    
  • Global warming hiatus:  prospects for a prolonged slowdown in global warming in the early 21st century. Nature Communications (2016). Supplemental Material.
  • Summertime heat stress:  Detection of anthropogenic influence. Climatic Change (2016). Supplemental Material.
  • Extreme annual-mean warmth during 2013 over regions of Australia and the western tropical Pacific:  a multimodel assessment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2014).
  • Seasonal and annual mean precipitation extremes occurring during
    2013: A U.S. focused analysis. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2014).  See also the Research Highlight. page.
  • Arctic sea ice extent in 2012:  The role of global climate change.  Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2013)
  • Observed Barents Sea winter sea ice decline:  On the discrepancy between observed and CMIP5 multi-model changes.  Nature Communications (2017) by Dawei Li, Rong Zhang, and T. Knutson
  • Regional surface temperature trends during the 20th century:  assessment of CMIP3 and CMIP5 simulations (J. Climate, 2013).  See Research Highlight page (summary of article).
  • Early 20th century global warming:  climate model simulations (Delworth and Knutson, Science, 2000)
  • Tropical Pacific decadal variability and trends (Knutson and Manabe, J. Climate, 1998)
  • Coral bleaching (Donner et al. PNAS 2007)
  • Land cover change affects on climate (Findell et al., J. Climate, 2006)